The Arctic Diaries E-Book

Melissa Davies

• Herausgeber: Arachne Press
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 27

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

A poetic project of preservation and sense of place. Rich imagery and language dives deep into the lives of coastal communities in the far north of Norway, from debut poet, Melissa Davies When the fisherman dies Fleinvær stories spill out silver strings, like guts from a spring catch. But between these pages they survive. The Arctic Diaries chart generations of the characters, myths and misremembered details that make up the oral traditions of a windswept archipelago in Norway's far north. Created over a single arctic winter, using stories gathered from the last surviving fisherman of Langholmen, this collection of poems are part history, part field notes, exploring what role the outsider plays in preserving the experience of another.

Leseprobe

For Matthew

Thank you for your unwavering support of my writing and for agreeing to ‘run a creative retreat’ with me in the Arctic.

May you never have to defrost another desalination system.

Contents

Introducing Fleinvær

Guide to Norsk

Part One18th November – We Arrive

Fleinvær is Made up of Three Hundred and Sixty Five Islands

Into the Archipelago

Bird Wife

Sær Orm

(marram grass)

An Island is the Summit of a Mountain

Værøy

Island Birth

The Lookout Men

Treasures From the First Boat

A Disturbance Recounted Years Later

The Fisherman Remembers a Boy Disappeared

Equinox

Skrei Season on Røst

Stranger

When they Closed the School

The Fisherman Remembers the Boy Reappeared

Vær, or Island Weather

Part Two4th January – We Listen

Vanishing Act

Made into an Island

Fiskebruk

Halibut

Immersion

Coffee

Seaweed

(Collecting)

i. The Artist Collects Fish Bones

ii. The Fisherman Collects Feathers

iii. The Musician Collects Guests

iiii. The Fisherman’s Wife Collects Books

Guardians

Preparing to Leave the Island

Said the Father to His Wife, the Mother

Part Three16th April – We Leave

Poppel

A trawlerman recalls

Flomålet

They Call Him the Salmon King of Norway

Langholmen

(Out of the Archipelago)

Introducing Fleinvær

Fleinvær is a real place – an archipelago off the Arctic coast of Norway. As well as being one of only a handful of inhabited islands in Fleinvær, Sørvær is home to Fordypingsrommet, where I spent the winter of 2018-19. The fisherman and his wife, musician and artist are all fictionalised characters based on the people who welcomed us into their homes many times during those dark months. While all the stories, myths and events referenced here are theirs, on more than one occasion I have embellished them with details pulled from research or my own imagination. All I ask is that you don’t read this as a work of historical fact but then, as the title suggests, neither is it entirely a work of fiction. The Arctic Diaries blends the two using my experience of Fleinvær and the picture I have pieced together from the stories its residents chose to share with me.

With a complete lack of young people, the folk and environmental knowledge of Fleinvær will be lost in a matter of years. By writing The Arctic Diaries, I hope to give some of their stories permanence and a life of their own. The current struggle to keep the archipelago’s fragile community from destruction at the hand of Norway’s ‘Salmon King’ only makes it even more urgent to share their experience. However, I will remind you that every word written here comes from the pen of an outsider.

January 2022

Guide to Norsk

Øy/Øya

Island/The Island

Sundet

Sound or strait, as in water separating islands or connecting two larger bodies of water.

Skrei

A type of Atlantic cod which migrates south from the Barents Sea and is fished around the Lofoten islands from January to April. The name is shared with the word skrei meaning ‘to migrate’.

Tørrfisk

Stockfish, air dried cod famously exported from the Lofoten and Vesterålen areas of Norway.

Hjell

Wooden racks used for drying tørrfisk